We have our very own member "Jughead" on here with a story that many have heard and ponder with complete disbelief. I find it truly fascinating and cannot hear the story enough honestly.

When talking about Jugheads story, my father has spoken of a superior officer he had in the Marines and his own story.

This is pretty good. My pops just sent this link to me.

"The man who rode the thunder". Check it out...

http://biggeekdad.com/2012/07/the-man-who-rode-thunder/

AKT

I had to watch that a few times to even wrap my head around that story. Absolutely fascinating that someone could live through that.

Great post AKT.

I read Rankin's book. Seemed like a pretty humble guy.

I haven't watched the video or read the book yet. But I'm curious - why eject at such high altitude? Why not ride it down to a lower (but still safe) ejection alt? Perhaps point it away from the worst of the storm. Sorry if this is a dumb question.

The video explains it.. engine failure, fire warnings, bail out and then one hellacious ride! It is almost beyond imagination what that must have been like!

soyAnarchisto wrote:I haven't watched the video or read the book yet. But I'm curious - why eject at such high altitude? Why not ride it down to a lower (but still safe) ejection alt? Perhaps point it away from the worst of the storm. Sorry if this is a dumb question.

That is actually a good question. I agree. an engine quite producing thrust at that altitude and speed still, can fly for a long way A fire warning doesn't mean there is an immediate destructive threat from fire. There are options pilots have to suppress or at least extend the integrity of the airframe due to fire. If I was in his shoes I would have waited as long as possible to pull the eject.

There has to be more to the story than the video explains.

I bet the explanation is in the book. Man, 40 minutes from eject to hanging in a tree. And I thought I had bad days.

This is a pretty amazing story also:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... storm.html

There is a rather long and overblown youtube vid called "miracle in the storm"

What is neat is that her vario recorded her path.

Lucky escape.

Some of those airplanes relied on engine power for hydraulic pressure, and they didn't have a Ram Air Turbine (RAT) to deploy.

So, when the engine quits, you have a very finite and short period of useable controls. After that, you're just a passenger, and if the thing goes out of control--and it will--there's no guarantee you will be able to safely eject.

Not sure about the F-8, but many of the fighters of that vintage had no backup source of hydraulics.

MTV

We had a female Lt. when I was in Jump School. Ft. Benning GA in the middle of summer, she kept going up because of the thermals. We jumped at 1,200 feet and it took her a good 30 to 40 minutes to get down, you could hear her scream everytime she would start going up. I thought the Black Hats were gonna bust a gut laughing.

Thanks for posting that. My primary flight instructor, a USAF retired F-100 and F-4 driver, told me about this book when I was a teenager but I never could find a copy. Pretty wild and amazing ride!

Totally off topic, and Jamie Anderson just won gold at the Olympics from south Lake Tahoe! Good show for the boarders